The house in which I reside rests on a hill, first turn on the left. A spacious, salmon colored, two-story building, with a quaint front yard, full of vivacious, dazzling, seasonal flowers. The most alluring attributes of the house are my favorite windows. The most beautiful windows, one wide and airy, arched like it belongs in a cathedral. The other, barely there, squashed in a small cubicle of a bathroom, almost like an afterthought, a mistake. Two sisters, related almost only in name. My sister, and then, the afterthought, me.
My big window, then the charming Jasmines, the sturdy wood doors, then, the garage, filled with a family of Hondas. Leading to the doorway is a path like my own yellow brick road, directly imported from Oz.

The backyard overflows with roses. Red, orange, peach, plum, yellow, white, with more species than I could ever name. The morning glories stand as sentinels, guarding their kin with dignity, poise, and grace. Every spring, the ground cover holds a special delight, a surprise that catches my breath every year. It is almost as if the ground burst into flower just for me, for my birthday. The dull, earthy green bursts into a gigantic bed of thousands of incandescent flowers, and each year, I am stunned again and again and again by their magnificence, by their brilliance. Annually, the iris bulbs have their own ornate, celebration. They bloom into dignified, regal flora, colorful, yet still imperial.

My real home is my bed. Where I curl up with a good book to read, where I do my most important assignments, where I come to after a particularly awful day, where I go to be alone, where I go to cry. It is my sanctuary, my haven, my asylum, and the place where I can contemplate or disappear into the worlds of my books. It is where I sleep at night, where I dream of what can be, what could be, and what will be. My own sanctum sanctorum.